The educational and reflective intervention of this program leaves traces beyond the made-up murals: teachers and students, communities that transform their habits and their vision about garbage management and responsible consumption with the environment.
The murals that result from each version can be seen in the perimeter gates of the participating schools. Each one is just the tangible trace of a complex process of changing habits and attitudes, linking the environment with art, through workshops and activities that stimulate the capacities and knowledge of both students and teachers and the staff working in each educational center.
Between 2009 and 2013, 390 students at 13 schools and colleges in Santiago and Santo Domingo, have worked in the Recycled City program developed by Centro León. Through them, thousands of adolescents and young people in these educational and geographical communities have been impacted by the initiative that aims to favor the creation of awareness in the new generations regarding the problem of the accumulation of solid waste in large cities.
In each stage of the program, various actors are integrated, in addition to the communities involved, such as artists, sponsors and other entities that are sensitive to the theme and join forces with the León Center project, whose premises cover its main themes: identity, creativity and livability. As defined by María Luisa Estrella, Technical Assistant for Education of the institution, "Recycled City is a dynamic, creative, democratic educational program. Sensitive to humanity and the environment, where the protagonists are children and young people ".
Who, when and how
Estrella indicates that in order to be part of the program, the educational center and the surrounding community must meet particular conditions that guarantee the effectiveness of the program: Be an educational center with an interest in changing their habits and committed to caring for their environment. Have responsible students with the transformation of their environment and the creative process from recycling. Have a group of community interlocutors (parents and friends from the school, teachers, volunteers) who protect and disseminate the actions learned during the processes. To have the basic cycle.
During 10 approximately weeks, the group of selected students, together with their teachers and the rest of the personnel of the educational institution, undergo four stages of work. The first is about recognizing the environmental conditions of the environment. In the second time they visit the León Center, where awareness and training workshops are held, recycling workshops (the three Rs: Reduce, Refuse and Recycle) and creativity workshops. As a result, they get the mural sketch that the school will have under the concept developed by the group of students guided by the artists of the 5 Collective (Ernesto Rodríguez, Juan Gutiérrez, Wali Vidal and Joan Vidal)
The third stage returns to the environment, classifying and preparing the garbage that is generated in the school, putting into practice what was learned in the first and second stage. The realization of the mural is the fourth stage, which closes the cycle of recognizing the habitat, developing creativity and reaffirming the identity as an educational center and as individuals.
The scope of the program has varied from the first versions to the twelfth and thirteenth, carried out at the Santiago Apóstol Children's Shelter School and the Pontezuela Abajo School, both in Santiago de los Caballeros. Before, the process contemplated collecting and classifying solid waste from the garbage and then making an artistic mural. From now on, the program has been expanded to directly involve the staff of the educational center, so that through awareness-raising and capacity-building workshops, educational institutions can consciously and permanently solve the problem of garbage.
The educational footprint of Recycled City
"I learned about the environment and the three R's." Braulio Bencosme says it, when asked about what he learned during Recycled City. He is studying the sixth grade at the Pontezuela Abajo School in Santiago, home of the latest version of the program. This educational footprint is the intention of the new versions of the program, as Renata Lordello, Executive Vice President of the Heroes of the Environment Foundation (HMA), puts it: "the proposal is to deepen the environmental awareness of the students, specifically the problem from the human footprint and climate change from the global point of view to the visualization of its local consequences, through the 3 R method (reduction, reuse and recycling) ".
However, the change that is pursued with this awareness is not achieved overnight, as the same representative of Phillip Morris Dominicana, Odile Herrera. "It is a collective process, not an individual one, under the dogma of citizen participation. Once the change is unleashed it is difficult to go back, to see the world again as we saw it before, that is the basis of the self-sustainability of our programs, "says Herrera.
Art-environment bonding
Is it possible to link art and the environment? Yes. Recycled City shows that both issues, as opposed to quarreling, can be better than expected. "Once the participants become aware that, for example, a plastic bottle takes 600 years to decompose, that a supermarket case takes 30, that a glass from the grocery store takes 8 years ... they themselves want to know what the things that could be done to reduce, reuse and recycle. "This is what Lordello points out.
The Recycled City is not only aimed at ecological awareness but also at:
The education specialist at the León Center cites the intervention of artists in the creativity workshops and the realization of the mural, as part of the strategies for the link between art and the environment to be successful. He also cites the training on both topics, dialogue and brainstorming between artists and students, artistic sketches and teamwork guided by artists and teachers.
Work in collective
The twelfth edition of the Recycled City program is possible thanks to the sponsorship of Phillip Morris Dominicana and the support of Malta Morena, entities interested in reducing the impact of garbage in cities and generating a change of attitude in citizens regarding the issue .
The educational and reflective intervention of this program leaves traces beyond the made-up murals: teachers and students, communities that transform their habits and their vision about garbage management and responsible consumption with the environment.
The murals that result from each version can be seen in the perimeter gates of the participating schools. Each one is just the tangible trace of a complex process of changing habits and attitudes, linking the environment with art, through workshops and activities that stimulate the capacities and knowledge of both students and teachers and the staff working in each educational center.
Between 2009 and 2013, 390 students at 13 schools and colleges in Santiago and Santo Domingo, have worked in the Recycled City program developed by Centro León. Through them, thousands of adolescents and young people in these educational and geographical communities have been impacted by the initiative that aims to favor the creation of awareness in the new generations regarding the problem of the accumulation of solid waste in large cities.
In each stage of the program, various actors are integrated, in addition to the communities involved, such as artists, sponsors and other entities that are sensitive to the theme and join forces with the León Center project, whose premises cover its main themes: identity, creativity and livability. As defined by María Luisa Estrella, Technical Assistant for Education of the institution, "Recycled City is a dynamic, creative, democratic educational program. Sensitive to humanity and the environment, where the protagonists are children and young people ".
Who, when and how
Estrella indicates that in order to be part of the program, the educational center and the surrounding community must meet particular conditions that guarantee the effectiveness of the program: Be an educational center with an interest in changing their habits and committed to caring for their environment. Have responsible students with the transformation of their environment and the creative process from recycling. Have a group of community interlocutors (parents and friends from the school, teachers, volunteers) who protect and disseminate the actions learned during the processes. To have the basic cycle.
During 10 approximately weeks, the group of selected students, together with their teachers and the rest of the personnel of the educational institution, undergo four stages of work. The first is about recognizing the environmental conditions of the environment. In the second time they visit the León Center, where awareness and training workshops are held, recycling workshops (the three Rs: Reduce, Refuse and Recycle) and creativity workshops. As a result, they get the mural sketch that the school will have under the concept developed by the group of students guided by the artists of the 5 Collective (Ernesto Rodríguez, Juan Gutiérrez, Wali Vidal and Joan Vidal)
The third stage returns to the environment, classifying and preparing the garbage that is generated in the school, putting into practice what was learned in the first and second stage. The realization of the mural is the fourth stage, which closes the cycle of recognizing the habitat, developing creativity and reaffirming the identity as an educational center and as individuals.
The scope of the program has varied from the first versions to the twelfth and thirteenth, carried out at the Santiago Apóstol Children's Shelter School and the Pontezuela Abajo School, both in Santiago de los Caballeros. Before, the process contemplated collecting and classifying solid waste from the garbage and then making an artistic mural. From now on, the program has been expanded to directly involve the staff of the educational center, so that through awareness-raising and capacity-building workshops, educational institutions can consciously and permanently solve the problem of garbage.
The educational footprint of Recycled City
"I learned about the environment and the three R's." Braulio Bencosme says it, when asked about what he learned during Recycled City. He is studying the sixth grade at the Pontezuela Abajo School in Santiago, home of the latest version of the program. This educational footprint is the intention of the new versions of the program, as Renata Lordello, Executive Vice President of the Heroes of the Environment Foundation (HMA), puts it: "the proposal is to deepen the environmental awareness of the students, specifically the problem from the human footprint and climate change from the global point of view to the visualization of its local consequences, through the 3 R method (reduction, reuse and recycling) ".
However, the change that is pursued with this awareness is not achieved overnight, as the same representative of Phillip Morris Dominicana, Odile Herrera. "It is a collective process, not an individual one, under the dogma of citizen participation. Once the change is unleashed it is difficult to go back, to see the world again as we saw it before, that is the basis of the self-sustainability of our programs, "says Herrera.
Art-environment bonding
Is it possible to link art and the environment? Yes. Recycled City shows that both issues, as opposed to quarreling, can be better than expected. "Once the participants become aware that, for example, a plastic bottle takes 600 years to decompose, that a supermarket case takes 30, that a glass from the grocery store takes 8 years ... they themselves want to know what the things that could be done to reduce, reuse and recycle. "This is what Lordello points out.
The Recycled City is not only aimed at ecological awareness but also at:
The education specialist at the León Center cites the intervention of artists in the creativity workshops and the realization of the mural, as part of the strategies for the link between art and the environment to be successful. He also cites the training on both topics, dialogue and brainstorming between artists and students, artistic sketches and teamwork guided by artists and teachers.
Work in collective
The twelfth edition of the Recycled City program is possible thanks to the sponsorship of Phillip Morris Dominicana and the support of Malta Morena, entities interested in reducing the impact of garbage in cities and generating a change of attitude in citizens regarding the issue .
This experience has touched hundreds of students from different educational centers of Santiago and Santo Domingo, in order to achieve the awareness of the new generations regarding the need to take care of the environment and the problem that the accumulation of solid waste in the big cities, in a creative and different way.
As it was conceived for the project from its beginnings in the 2009, the students realized a series of workshops in the educative center in which the subject of the biodiversity was approached, techniques of creation related to the art of recycling and aspects related to the environmental problems existing in urban areas. In these workshops, the youngsters learned how to identify recyclable materials to later use them in a creative and artisanal way, favoring the making of various objects to form a mural with the accompaniment of educating artists and other specialists.
At the opening ceremony, the parents, students and faculty involved in this tenth edition of Recycled City. They also accompanied a tour of the more than forty linear meters of this work of art of recycling the executives and specialists of the Propa-Gas Foundation, the Eduardo León Jimenes Foundation and the León Center.
The 5 Collective, composed of Ernesto Rodríguez, Joan Vidal, Wali Vidal and Juan Gutiérrez, renowned artists of the visual arts, guided the youth of the Carol Morgan School, instructing them in the use of artistic techniques for the use and transformation of waste. solids recovered in the school environment and in their homes.
The environmental awareness workshops were in charge of the team of specialists of the Propa-Gas Foundation who attended the educational center with audiovisual materials and other practices that awakened in the participants the desire to put their best effort in the last stage that was the realization of the mural.
Students of the Basic School of Pontezuela proudly showed the community the mural in a tour with the teachers and parents present.
With regard to the recent celebration of the International Day of the Environment, the experience that has already touched thousands of students from different educational centers of the two main cities of the country, reaches the community of Pontezuela in the city of Santiago in order to achieve, in a creative way, the awareness of the new generations regarding the need to care for the environment and the search for a practical solution to the accumulation of solid waste in large cities.
As it was conceived for the project from its beginnings in the 2009, during several weeks the students realized a series of workshops in the school, in which techniques of creation linked to the art of recycling and aspects related to the existing environmental problematiza were approached. in urban areas. In these workshops, young people and adolescents learn to locate and use recycled materials in a creative and artisan way, favoring the making of diverse objects to form a mural with the accompaniment of educating artists and other specialists.
At the opening ceremony were present parents, students and faculty involved in this new edition of Recycled City. They also accompanied a tour of this work of art of recycling, the executives and specialists of Phillip Morris Dominicana, the Eduardo León Jimenes Foundation and the León Center.
The 5 Collective: Ernesto Rodríguez, Joan Vidal, Wali Vidal and Juan Gutiérrez, visual artists from Santiago, guided the young people of the Basic School of Pontezuela for several weeks, in the use of different artist techniques to develop the mural by reusing solid waste. .
The Recycled City program inaugurated its ninth mural in the country with artistic works made by young students from the northeast sector of the city.
This experience covered the awareness of the new generations regarding the need to take care of the environment and the problem that the accumulation of solid waste in large cities means, fostering thoughtful consumption, based on respect for the other and for nature. On the other hand, the concretion in these urban spaces of artistic murals as ecological manifestos, using these same solid waste as material for creation, transmits a message that calls for citizen responsibility and at the same time makes an urban aesthetic contribution where it is found.
As it was conceived for the project, during several weeks the students realized a series of workshops in the school, in which techniques of creation linked to the art of recycling and aspects related to the existent environmental problematic in the urban areas were approached. In these workshops, young people and adolescents learned to locate and use recycled materials in a creative and artisan way, favoring the making of diverse objects to form a collective mural.
One of the students participating in basic Teófilo de Jesus Garcia school commits: "I know that I am doing something that is good and productive."
The plastic artists of the 5 collective: Ernesto Rodriguez, Joan Vidal, Wali Vidal and Juan Gutiérrez guided the young participants in the management of artistic techniques for the use and transformation of solid waste recovered in the urban environment.
“Recycled City has been a fascinating adventure. We learned from the children, the children learned from us, and all of us together will carry this message to other children and adults who pass through here daily, ”expressed Joan Vidal, a visual artist, member of the team of artists from Santiago who participated in the project.
The realization of this ninth edition of the Recycled City program was made thanks to the sponsorship of Phillip Morris Dominicana and the support of Malta Morena.